'No one came today either.'
Kael watched a single snowflake wander down, swaying as though unsure where to land. The moment it touched his leg, it dissolved, leaving a small dark stain on his trousers.
He pulled on a pair of gloves and remained seated, letting the silence stretch a little longer.
Ever since posting his offers on the black market, he had come to the bench at midnight without fail. And still, only one customer had ever appeared.
'Perhaps it's too difficult to solve after all.'
Yes, Cain had managed it in a single day, but Kael had no doubt that he was an anomaly, even among Luminaires.
'I'm earning too few mindstones to grow strong enough in time.'
Kael leaned forward, resting his chin in his palm as he stared out across the frozen lake.
The two hundred and fifty mindstones Cain had swindled from him might not mean much to a noble. To Kael, they would ease his troubles immensely.
"I'll also have to change the meeting grounds after each commission," he whispered to himself.
The bench offered solitude. It was familiar. Still, Kael could not shake the feeling of being watched. If someone could find him once, they could find him again. And if they knew he sat at the same bench each night, it left all the time in the world to plan an ambush.
Kael's gaze drifted upward.
'A full moon…'
He lowered his eyes back to the lake and rose to his feet.
The ice creaked and groaned beneath him as he stepped onto it. His hands stayed in his pockets as he pressed down with his heel, testing its strength. The sound held, solid and dull.
'Wonder how far, exactly, it stretches?'
Before him lay an endless mirror of ice. Crossing it would take months, even without breaks. And yet, despite its waves, despite behaving like an ocean beneath, the lake froze every winter. Even warm ones.
Kael began to walk, unhurried, drifting toward its center.
Like the continents themselves, the West held anomalies that defied the world's logic. This lake was one of them. No matter how restless the water below, it froze. No matter how mild the cold, it froze. As if its freezing point had been lowered itself.
Kael moved carefully, each step measured, testing the crystal-clear ice before committing his weight to it.
He turned to look behind him.
Velthoria usually bled golden light from every window, warm and alive. Now it stood as a single glow in the distance, no different from the countless stars scattered across the sky.
Kael leaned his head back and exhaled, watching a small cloud form and fade. He lifted his arm without purpose and let it hang there.
Minutes passed.
A weight settled onto it.
Kael lowered his head. A raven perched calmly on his arm, its hollow eyes fixed on him. The bird's stomach bulged once before it opened its beak.
"Hello, Kael."
The voice was deep.
"Torin," Kael replied.
The raven tilted its head. Kael met its gaze, cold behind the blindfold.
"To think you were only rank one when we first met," Torin said aloud.
Kael did not answer. His attention drifted back to the endless river of ice.
"I underestimated you," Torin continued, his tone almost regretful.
Kael scoffed inwardly. He had always known Torin watched him whenever he could. It was his role, after all. When Kael stepped onto the ice, he had expected Torin to appear. He had not expected him to be this talkative.
Kael shifted his arm, letting the raven settle onto his shoulder as he resumed walking.
"What was the name of this lake again, Torin?" Kael asked, continuing toward its center.
"Yunara," Torin answered honestly. "Earlier generations of Luminaires believed the lake held the secret to longevity."
"Sounds pathetic."
The raven fell silent.
"It was… to some extent," Torin said after a pause. "But it was not entirely without merit. As you likely know, the pressure within the lake is uneven. Everything is forced inward, toward the center of Yunara. Over millions of years, that pressure forged the lake's core. Not sand, but gemstone."
Kael's blindfolded gaze shifted back to the raven.
He hadn't known that.
"But enough about the lake, Kael," Torin said. "What do you want?"
Kael did not answer right away.
When they had first met, Torin had been rank three already. To Kael, then only rank one, he had felt immovable. A presence like a mountain in his path, vast and distant, something meant to be looked up at rather than challenged.
Kael remained silent.
Time had a way of eroding even mountains. Or perhaps it simply revealed that they could be climbed.
Now the weight of that once-unreachable peak rested on his shoulder. He no longer strained his neck to face Torin.
And Kael wondered, not for the first time, whether the mountain had shrunk, or whether he himself had grown.
He had never doubted his ability to climb the mountain. The future had always felt certain to him. But the present could not be ignored. Neither could the subtle shift in Torin's tone, the change in how he carried himself.
Now, they stood on the same ground, beneath the same sky. Equals.
"When are Eireindaile planning to attack Valthorne?"
Kael finally asked.
The raven tilted its head toward the sky, as if admiring it.
"Late spring," Torin said calmly.
With that, the raven broke apart into drifting feathers, carried away by the wind and swallowed by the darkness.
"I see…"
Kael murmured to himself.
Kael crossed his arms and lifted his gaze toward the sky as well.
He had never doubted that Torin would answer. The reasoning rested on more than one thing. Kael understood Torin beyond his noble façade. He knew the man beneath the titles.
Torin knew that Syleena was one of Eireindaile's primary targets once the war began. One of the reasons the family was so eager to ignite it was because they needed her gone.
But that was not all.
Syleena had spoken of Torin as a father figure. And though he preached righteousness, though he spoke often of duty and dying for Eireindaile, Kael had seen past that. Something personal stood in the way of Torin's so-called righteousness. He wanted Syleena to live, even if he would never admit it aloud. It was written into his character. It showed in the way he treated Kael as well.
Even without Eireindaile blood, Kael held value in Torin's eyes. Perhaps because of it.
Kael lowered his gaze, staring through the ice into the dark water below.
Torin must have read Kael just as clearly. He must have understood that both Syleena and Kael recognized their predicament. That they would eventually stand together, not out of loyalty or affection, but because they valued survival above all else.
And so Torin had chosen a side.
He would kill in the war, as duty demanded. But he would also ensure that Syleena had a chance, however slim, to survive it.
Quietly, without ceremony, Torin had committed treason. Not openly, not loudly. Just enough to place his trust in Kael, offering information and hoping it would one day lead to Syleena's freedom.
Kael turned his head toward the direction the feathers had drifted, a calm gaze behind the blindfold.
Torin, at the very least, had stayed true to himself.
Kael lingered on the ice a moment longer, taking in the stillness, before turning back toward the city.
Once inside the apartment, he removed his coat and sank into the sofa. He pulled out a notebook and tore a page free.
'I'll reduce it to only two layers.'
He picked up a pen and began drafting a new post for the black market.
The first rays of sunlight seeped through the window by the time Kael finally set the pen down. He lifted the paper, reading through it a few times, before slipping it into his pocket.
'Only thing left to do is to post it.'
He leaned back, watching the sunlight reflect off the snow-covered rooftops.
A door creaked open beside him, and Mael stepped out, her golden hair gathered into a messy bun. She turned, pausing as the light spilled across Kael's blindfolded face.
"Morning." She adjusted her hair as she spoke. "I'll bring a friend over later today. You're okay with that, right?"
"Sure,"
Kael answered plainly.